As the largest sector of higher education in the US, community colleges serve a critical role in helping many students pursue and achieve their educational goals. Most community college districts are led by a team that includes a governing board of trustees and a lead administrator (often called a superintendent, president, or chancellor) who…

Despite the lack of comprehensive federal legislation for undocumented students, activists catalyzed the passage of the New York State Dream Act in 2019. Yet, numerous barriers remain for undocumented students pursuing higher education. We provide a case example of UndocuAlly Trainings facilitated at a campus center in the State University of New…

Team-based and problem-based learning to create a flipped classroom environment are innovative pedagogical approaches used in many healthcare curricula. Flipping the classroom has been found to increase student motivation to complete assigned readings prior to class, increase student engagement and participation, develop teamwork skills, and…

The paper studies the rise of neuroscience in initial teacher education, paying attention to the relatively recent Australian Government (2023) report titled 'Strong Beginnings'. In taking up a critical policy sociology lens, we focus on the first priority within the reforms, which is mandating brain science and the 'brain and learning' as core…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the roles of quality managers at community colleges, their experiences balancing accountability and improvement and their insights into the future of quality assurance. Design/methodology/approach: This phenomenological, qualitative study used semi-structured interviews with eight community college quality…

The 2020-21 accreditation year continued to be impacted in significant ways by the ongoing nature of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. All accreditation activities, including site visits, were adjusted to reflect this new reality and to maintain full implementation of the system while continuing efforts to refine the newer aspects of the current…

Accreditation is an instrument of academic quality, transparency, efficiency and accountability at every step of educational systems. However, usually very few benefits of accreditation are listed when talking about educational context. The purpose of this study is to emphasize the benefits that accreditation processes in such sectors as health,…

The C4 Scholar Program (Cross Curricular Career Community) is an interdisciplinary, multi-semester learning community for first-year developmental students at a comprehensive midwestern state university. Faculty members from two units, Retention & Student Success and Arts and Sciences, created the program to address a persistent gap in…

Agile, Lean, and Scrum (collectively referred to as Agile) are frameworks that help teams collaborate more effectively and transparently on complex projects. Originally developed in business and information technology, these methods have since been adapted for use in a variety of disciplines. Agile is based on iterative and incremental…

This paper intends to demonstrate how within the current contentious environment for teacher education in the U.S., two small teacher preparation programs conducted a voluntary coordinated long-term self-evaluation study, that partially responded to external accountability pressures by the Federal administration, state agencies and various private…

Peer and cohort interaction are essential elements in building a sense of community for doctoral students, yet the restrictions placed on universities in the rapidly evolving COVID-19 environment challenged the ways both doctoral students and faculty approached their teaching and learning. In many environments, public health measures forced…

This research, conducted at a midsize university, focused on the virtue of tolerance as it relates to an often-neglected area of diversity--"diversity of conscience"--defined as 'legitimate differences of moral and religious conscience'. Tolerance is essential for fostering civility in our increasingly diverse societies and for promoting…

What makes a leadership preparation program exemplary? All three exemplary programs featured in this special issue evidence strong learning orientations and more sustained improvement work in their pursuit of exemplary preparation. I therefore examine exemplary preparation from a process perspective that emphasizes continuous improvement. To help…

The UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) introduced impact as an indicator in the evaluation of higher education research quality in 2014. Impact case studies (ICS) are the basis of this evaluation. ICS use "narrative" explanations of how research causes 'benefits to society'. This article analyses the evolving roles of the ICS and the…

Noise in academic libraries has been a consistent concern of library staff and library users. This concern has intensified as libraries have emphasized their role in supporting student learning, including learning that occurs in a busy, collaborative environment. Studies of acceptable library noise levels have traditionally been conducted in areas…